How to become your own best editor
Whatever you're writing, there’s always room to make it better. The way you do that? Through editing.
No piece of writing is ever perfect. I first learned this at Marie Claire magazine. I was PA to the editor, Juliet Warkentin, who had a brilliant scoop: Geri Halliwell’s first interview since leaving the Spice Girls.
One of my tasks was to give Juliet the page proofs for her final once-over. It was my lunch hour, the Geri proof was on my desk, and so I started reading.
It was excellent, hugely enjoyable. But there was a tiny discrepancy and, as a reader, it bugged me: at one point Geri happily chatted about eating a chicken salad; by the end of the article, she talked about being vegetarian.
I summoned up the courage to point it out to the features editor (I was totally in awe of her – after all, she commissioned features that actually won Amnesty International prizes), who then complimented me on a great spot and said I might have a future on the features desk. I was beyond thrilled.
Around the same time, a friend who was working at Conde Nast, told me that the Vogue cover nearly went to print with Keira Knightley’s name spelled wrongly. Meanwhile back at Marie Claire, a new editor had arrived who introduced a new strapline: ‘The Only Glossy With Brains’. But a small error meant we nearly went to print being ‘The Only Glossy with Brians’.
Whatever you are writing, there’s always room to make it better – and catch all manner of mistakes. How? By editing.
What’s editing?
Editing is part of the process of writing – and one of your most powerful tools to success. Changing, subtly reorganising, taking out.
I’m lucky in that I’m usually editing other people’s work. I am happy to be very liberal with my red pen. But self-editing? That’s a tough one.
To edit your own work, you have to strip away your ego and become a reader – just one of (you hope) many readers. Editing is not only about polishing and making your words work as hard as possible, it’s about keeping your reader engaged. This applies whether you have just finished writing a 400-page book, a 40-slide Powerpoint presentation, a new policy document or an Instagram post. There is no point writing words if people aren’t going to read them. To learn how to become your own best editor, there are a few key things to look out for…
1. Know who you are as a writer
I overwrite. I can go on and on. (Terrible for an editor, I know). My Forthwrite blog a few weeks ago on ‘Where Writers Write’ was so long, it exceeded the email word count. I would have cried if my colleague Mark hadn’t pointed out that it could be two blogs. So, I definitely overwrite, and I know that about myself. Who are you as a writer? Do you overwrite? Or underwrite? Are you hesitant? Or do you just go with the flow? What type of mistakes do you make? If you know what type of writer you are, it will be easier to spot how to improve.
2. Do you have a great first sentence?
I’m currently binge-reading How to Kidnap the Rich by Rahul Raina. I was hooked after the first two sentences: “The first kidnapping wasn’t my fault. The others – those were definitely me.”
And great first sentences aren’t just for novelists. Angela Duckworth left a high-flying consultancy job to teach maths to seventh graders in NYC. Her business book, Grit, opens with, "‘By the time you set foot on the campus of the United States Military Academy at West Point, you’ve earned it’. Why? How? What did you have to do to get there? I read on.
My Forthwrite co-founder, Mark Jones’s first-ever feature in his first proper job on Campaign magazine began like this:
The normally unshockable world of advertising was shocked this week when....’
Mark recalls: A new colleague and an old hand read the piece and spluttered. ‘You’ve only been here a day,’ she said. “How the f*** do you know what shocks the world of advertising and what doesn’t?’ In retrospect, that opening sentence was a bit bumptious. But I don’t really regret it. When you’re writing a feature, it’s a good idea to open the throttle early on, not stutter apologetically along in second gear for a hundred words. And there’s nothing like the full-throated roar of a good generalisation to get the rev counter up.
If you’re writing prose, a pitch, proposal or presentation, this is excellent advice. The first sentence is all about grabbing the reader and holding onto their attention for dear life and doing justice to the body of work that it is introducing. And that’s the only thing your first sentence needs to do. Grab your reader, be it a client, your boss or your colleagues.
And if the answer to the above question is no? Maybe go back and rewrite. It will be worth it. (See below for some of my favourite opening lines.)
3. Are you trying too hard?
When someone writes effortlessly, it is the greatest thing in the world. Make too much effort, your writing will be self-conscious. Write in a way that is fun, engaging, emotional. And beware of fancy words – be smart, but accessible. No one wants to read something where they have to look up every other word in the dictionary. It can just sound like showing off, and doesn’t deliver information or emotion – just intellectual information.
4. The beginning, middle and the end
Who was the teacher who first taught you that you can’t have a story if you don’t have a beginning, middle, and end? Mine was Mrs Williams. I think I was six.
Everything we write needs a beginning, a middle and an end: reports, emails, pitches, even CVs. Break down what you have written into elements and look at the structure. Do you have a strong start, an arresting, thought-provoking middle and a conclusive ending? What have you left out? What can be left out? Is there any confusion? What are you concluding?
5. ‘Kill your darlings’
It’s a writing cliché, but to be good, ‘You must kill all your darlings’. This quote that has been attributed to practically everyone from Stephen King, Ernest Hemingway, Anton Chekov, Oscar Wilde to Virginia Woolf. It means that you have to get rid of your most precious and especially self-indulgent passages for the greater good of your work.
6. Tone the flab
Flabby writing generally refers to all the extra words that prevent you from having a lean, sound written structure. The way to find out if your writing is flabby and needs shaping up is to read your work out loud. Or, more painful, have someone else read it aloud – and watch to see where they stumble. Stumbling is a very good indicator of language that’s not working.
7. Colour code
If I’m editing a long piece (or something that is a bit of a mess), I colour code:
Red = disaster
Orange = I like the copy, but it’s in the wrong place
Green = good.
I started this system when I wrote my dissertation on Russian peasantry in the 19th century. I laid my 10,000 words out on my bedroom floor and worked to turn the whole thing to green. It’s a method that has stood me in good stead ever since. Oh, I lied, there is one other colour: purple = spelling mistakes and grammatical errors (but it’s still simpler than the government's travel policy).
8. And finally?
Be confident enough to say when you think something is working – and stop editing.
In the Forthwrite course ‘How to Write with Clarity’, we look at how successful writers write and editors edit to make words work harder and deliver greater impact. So much writing – especially in a corporate environment – is convoluted, cliched and confusing. This course focuses on how to energise any copy, as well as waging war on corporatese to create a way of writing that’s fast, focussed and lucid.
Brilliant first sentences
I’ve been lucky enough to commission many fabulous writers, whose work only ever needed the lightest of touches – and were masters of getting stories off to a gripping start…
‘As I have now attended the Bear Grylls Survival Academy, I know how to cook rat.’ Deborah Ross
‘You can tell a lot about a country's reputation from the sharp intake of breath from friends when you tell them where you're going.’ Mark Jones (writer and Forthwrite co-founder)
‘In 1976, graphic designer Milton Glaser sat in the back of a taxicab with a red crayon, a torn envelope and an idea that would become central to the creation of modern New York.’ Zach Udko
‘As I sit down for breakfast with my friend Jerry, our waitress hands over my pancakes, thrust her nose into my hair and has a good old sniff. “Well, one of you boys sure smells good today,” she says with a big smile. “But”, looking at me, “it’s not you, honey.”’ Will Hide
‘Driving along on a country road in central Ohio on a soft May morning, I pulled up next to a nondescript stream.’ Tracey Chevalier
‘A shop called Kingdom of Pork is the last thing you’d expect to see in an Israeli city, but the Neve Sha’anan district of Tel Aviv specialises in the unusual.’ Rhodri Marsden
‘The Urubamba river threads its way past Inca terraces and ruins as the glaciers of towering 20,000-foot Andean peaks glisten in the distance.’ Hugh Thomson
‘I’m not writing this from San Diego.’ John Simpson
‘A grizzly bear!’ shouts ranger, Emma Schmidt’. Ianthe Butt
‘Come to Jamaica. Just do it,’ people said to me for years, but being a contrary Scot I resisted, visiting practically every other Caribbean country instead.’ Irvine Welsh
‘Peering ahead, from my seat on the edge of the boat, I felt sure I could see shadowy figures on the river bank.’ John-Paul Flintoff
‘Before the rowing, there’s the bowing.’ Jamie Fullerton
Love this Kerry. Great anecdotes, brilliant tips and kept me gripped from top to tail!
Sorry.. One more typo in point 2. Angela Duckworth leaving to 'each' math instead of 'teach'